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World Heritage Sites

Since 2013 the Medici villas and gardens have become World Heritage Sites. There are 14 Medici treasures on the whole, ten of which are located in the provincial territory of Florence.

This was the result of the 37th session of the World heritage Committee held in Cambodia from the 6th to the 27th of June 2013.

After the historic centre of the city of Florence, another important goal has been reached when 12 Medici villas and gardens have been registered in the World Heritage List, including the Park of Pratolino. This is a serial site called “Medici villas and gardens”.

Now, the following properties are UNESCO’s Heritage: the Boboli Garden (already Unesco’s Heritage because it is part of Florence’s historic centre), Villa La Petraia, Villa of Castello, Villa of Careggi, Villa of Poggio Imperiale, Villa Medici in Fiesole, Villa of Cerreto Guidi, the Garden of Pratolino (let us remind you that the Medici villa of Francis I was destroyed under the Lorraine family), Villa of Cafaggiolo, Castello del Trebbio, Villa of Poggio a Caiano, la Villa of Seravezza, La Magia in Quarrata and the villa of Artimino.

They are actually very different from each other of course, some of them hardly visitable today, but as the ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) has acknowledged: the selected Medici villas and gardens are an excellent example of a new pattern of settlement (the villa with a garden) and a new aristocratic life style, inaugurated by the Medici family in Tuscany during the Renaissance and then spread throughout Europe, based on a proper balance between architecture and the surrounding natural landscape.